The Washington Interactive Network, or WIN, held its penultimate panel for startup games studios. The topic: making money. Patrick Murck, Legal/Business Development at BigDoor, moderated a panel featuring LOGIN-speaker Nick Berry, president of Datagenetics; Matt Wilson of Detonator; and Derrick Morton, CEO of FlowPlay. Each of them provided educated discourse over the way to monetize non-retail games.
“You’re in a game with 10 million other people playing the same game. You will spend money to buy blue hats and flaming swords,” Berry pointed out early in the panel. “Why? Because they want to be different. It’s like fashion: If you were playing alone, it wouldn’t matter, but in a social environment, people will see you, so you spend money.” He also stated that people will purchase goods to expedite things like leveling and gathering items.
Making money through ads isn’t scalable, and it takes a lot of hits to make money, but companies are figuring out how to use certain brands and product placement in games. “Some people are starting to experiment with putting other brands in a gaming context,” Wilson said. He stated that brands come in — burned by failed banner ads — and are willing to put sponsored products in-game to help players. This concept has also worked with fundraising for charity.
When it comes to mobile games, making a profit is a little more challenging. The first step is getting people to see your game (like being placed on iTunes’ top 20 list). Things like this are challenging on things like the Android Marketplace. The panel mentioned the benefits of the iPhone’s frictionless payments but also mentioned the trouble developers can get into. Smurf Village, for example, is often vilified for not notifying players they’re purchasing virtual goods. Additionally, Morton mentioned that developers should experiment with price models once enough people are playing the game.
The final WIN meeting of the season will be held on May 17 at Bungie Studios.
